Salesforce
Company: Salesforce, San Francisco, California
Entry Submitted By: SHIFT Communications
Company Description: Salesforce is California's innovative CRM company that was founded in 2000. Data.com, a cloud based database product within Salesforce that hosts over thirty million contacts for Sales, Marketing and IT professionals looking to increase productivity and CRM. Salesforce employs over 5,000 people and has won numerous awards for their expertise in CRM.
Nomination Category: New Product & Service Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Marketing Solution – New
Nomination Title: Salesforce's Data.com Product
Tell the story about this nominated product or service (up to 500 words). Describe its function, features, benefits, and sales to date. You may include hyperlinks to product photos and data sheets. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
There is a 170 year old problem that Data.com is attempting to solve: how to
find quality business data and match it with a service that is easy to use,
cost efficient, updated continuously and easily accessible from wherever you
work. The reason this problem has been so difficult to solve is the modern
data explosion. While technology has improved over the last 170 years, it has
not kept pace with the volume of data. This is forcing companies to build
segmented data systems where they focus on accurate information for specific
fields, with no means to integrate any of that data together. On the end user
side, companies today need data faster than third parties can provide it and
when they receive it, there’s simply too much data to integrate into their
business plans.
Data.com is salesforce.com's answer to the data problem as the cloud-based
solution to access and maintain business data directly in Salesforce CRM.
Launched at Dreamforce 2011, Data.com is transforming the data industry and is
the first product to provide precise contact and business information to
companies that is matched with the cloud for easy, fast and timely access to
the data sources you need.
A great example is Clairmail—a leading provider of enterprise-wide mobile
banking and payments solutions—who wanted a customizable, collaborative
environment for their data needs. Data.com gave them a cloud-based service to
manage business data with real-time updates and access to leading sources of
information such as Jigsaw.com for contacts and D&B for accounts. Since
implementing Data.com, Clairmail grew from two to twenty sales
representatives, performed less maintenance work and could see how data
filtered through campaign influence. Through campaign influence tests,
Clairmail found that thirty percent of their sales could be tied back to
Data.com.
Another example is Lenovo, the largest PC manufacturer in the world. They
wanted to enhance sales and marketing data quality. Lenovo decided to use
Data.com and found that it was flexible and the lists that could be created
within the product allowed them to reach out to the correct decision maker; a
huge time saver for sales and marketing professionals. Data.com provided real
time data which reduced bounce rates and helped the sales team reach more
accounts and close more deals.
Data.com has provided a ground breaking solution to the 170 year old problem.
Data is now accessible and manageable for the first time. The future of the
data industry has changed due to Data.com’s ability to provide fast,
efficient, up-to-date and comprehensive data. The ability to access and
integrate quality data is the key to all successful sales and marketing
campaigns, and directly drives revenue growth within organizations. Data.com
delivers on this vision by bringing the cloud, salesforce.com innovation, and
the leading providers of data together in way that is easy-to-access for
marketers.
List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, product reviews, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:
Article in Direct Marketing News-
http://www.dmnews.com/salesforcecom-to-use-db-files-for-datacom/article/210863/
Article in BtoB Magazine-
http://www.btobonline.com/article/20110831/DIRECT0101/308319994/salesforce-com-to-use-d-b-files-for-data-com
Article in ZDNet- http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hinchcliffe/the-promise-and-challenges-of-benioffs-social-enterprise-vision/1722
Article in Information Age- http://www.information-age.com/channels/information-management/news/1650903/salesforcecom-launchescompany-data-service.thtml
Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the team that developed this nominated product or service:
Brett Queener, Data.com’s Executive Vice President and General Manager, holds
a BA degree from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard University. Brett
started his career at salesforce.com in 2003 and has been involved with the
executive leadership roles in the products, sales, operations and finance
organizations. He is responsible for guiding and driving how individuals
contribute, consume and manage their business data. With his vision, Data.com
can help businesses increase revenue and aid marketers, sales and IT
professionals.